ArtwordBlog

Category: London UK

  • East Enders vs the Republic of China

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    Judith Sandiford
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    How a small news story about East-Enders and the Chinese Embassy takes us on a big ride through family history, via the Battle of Cable Street and the mural … Ron’s late mum Alice Weihs was an honourary East-Ender. She was dubbed “Ellis the Ken-eye-dian” (cockney accent). She went off to London UK on her…

  • RSC: Kathryn Hunter’s Timon of Athens

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    Ronald Weihs
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    Kathryn Hunter in Timon of Athens, photo by Simon Annand When Judith and I  learned that the Royal Shakespeare was doing Timon of Athens this winter, with Kathryn Hunter in the lead role, we were more than excited. Kathryn Hunter is a remarkable actor. She is known for her powerful stage presence, her prowess as…

  • RSC: Tartuffe in Birmingham

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    Ronald Weihs
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    Tartuffe (played by Asif Khan) takes a selfie. The RSC’s new version of Molière’s Tartuffe is a remarkable piece of work. It transports the plot to Birmingham, and sets it in a Pakistani Muslim household. Tartuffe is a fake holy man, who has gained influence over Imran Pervais, and is imposing his fundamentalist version of…

  • Richard II at the Almeida: the real Beale

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    Ronald Weihs
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    It was with great anticipation that I went to the Almeida to see Simon Russell Beale in The Tragedy of Richard II. He had been a brilliant Timon of Athens at the National in 2012, in a startling production by Nicholas Hyntner that connected Shakespeare’s stark fable to the Occupy movement and Wall Street corruption.…

  • Tate Modern Photo-ops

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    Ronald Weihs
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    Picasso retrospective I love the Tate Modern. There’s the shows, of course — the free ones from the permanent collection and the blockbusters. There’s the mysterious Tanks and the clever Artist Rooms. There’s the building, with all its curves and angles and long, long escalators, and the wonderful smooth sloping Turbine Hall. There are the…

  • National Theatre: Consent

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    Ronald Weihs
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    Consent at the Harold Pinter Consent is what used to be called a “problem play”, an examination from various perspectives of a current hot topic. The topic in this case: consensual sex versus rape. The characters are almost all lawyers or lawyers wives, except for one: a woman from the working class who has been…